A Dozen Red Roses
by jiiterbug
Summary: Life is more than a rose than it is itself. Life is laden with wonderful events that are all victims to the metaphor of a rose. The only event not compared to the fragrance is where the source is no longer found, no longer living. Withered and decaying, life hands Kurt nothing but grief.


Everyday, Sebastian would stop by the flower shop two blocks from their apartment and buy a dozen red roses. He would hide them behind his back, kiss Kurt on the cheek as a greeting, and pull them out.

The first time, Kurt smiled, blushed, and kissed him languidly for more than a few minutes, before carefully placing them in an old vase on their coffee table.

After the first month, he finally got a new vase: a nice one, glass with beautiful carvings on its base. The roses looked gorgeous, and every time he walked by the coffee table he would smile and feel his heart swell to twice its normal size.

When winter came around, Kurt decided to have a shelf made just for his roses. He went to a carpenter, and in a week, there was a bookshelf placed in his and Sebastian's bedroom. Its top shelf was made especially for the roses, and they fit perfectly. Sometimes he could smell their fragrance as he was bustling around the room, and his eyes would get warmer, the way they did whenever he thought of his boyfriend.

On a hot, summer night, Kurt bursting into the apartment in tears. He threw himself onto their - no, his - bed and sobbed for hours. Eventually, he fell asleep, and when he woke, it was to a thousand red roses scattered all over the room; in the bookshelf, his boudoir, the chair by the door, and even on the bed covers. Sebastian was standing in the doorway, his own hand holding a dozen red roses, and his eyes pleading in silent apology. Later, as they kissed and touched and loved under the covers of their bed, the stray petals wouldn't matter.

After a stroll through the city, the bright lights of Times Square still mirrored on Kurt's eyes as Sebastian kneels before him and pulls out a ring. The roses he'd received earlier slip right out of his fingers as he is swooped into strong arms and carried into the bedroom, where they spend hours celebrating and just being happy. It doesn't matter, though. The vase on the bookshelf still holds the dozen red roses from the day before.

As he kisses his partner's lips through a smile, a hand resting on his waist and cheers and applause from family and friends. The red roses on the table seem to smile, and Kurt feels so happy he can't help but let that lone tear slide down his cheek. They go deep into the night discussing possible baby names, and when Sebastian subtlety places a hand on his knee halfway through the third bottle of whine, he knows they are thinking the same thing: we are starting a family.

When his hair is messy and he hasn't slept in days, and baby food litters his favorite jacket, Sebastian whispers praise into his ear, and after the dozen red roses are safely placed in their vase, he lets himself be spooned. Eyes drooping until he finally falls into a peaceful sleep. The baby monitor on the night table silent, and soft fingers stroking at his chest in assurance.

Walking - no, running - to the warm and open arms of his family, unaware of the disapproving looks being cast their way by passing travelers. The arms of his daughter latch onto his leg, and his husband's lips are pressing kisses onto the skin under his ears. He smiles, laughs, and hugs each in turn. Their presence soothing and grounding. Red roses are pressed onto his hand, and he looks down to where big brown eyes peek over the flowers. He takes them, and doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

On a cold December evening, waiting for his roses and another thing that's his that doesn't come.

As he watches the roses on his bookshelf, they're brown and dusty, and some of the petals have crinkled and shattered into specks of dust that crowd over the foot of the vase. He just stares at them; that's all he can do.

Two months later, when his heart still aches and the roses still look down at him from their spot on the shelf, he hasn't left the bedroom since the call, and the empty spot besides him is almost as heart-breaking as the dying flowers.

Although their color had always amazed Kurt, the way they always managed to look so red he was sure if he stared at them long enough he'd drown in the richness of the color, Kurt most misses the smell. The smell he'd always associated with his husband coming home; something that will never ever happen again. So what makes him sad isn't the way his roses have come to look like wrinkled paper, no. It's the lack of that sweet, sugary scent that had lingered on their home for the past three years.

For the first time, he is the one who stops by the flower shop. He is the one who picks out the most perfect red roses he can find clustered in the bucket, and he is the one who wraps them in brown paper. He is the one who gives them to the person he loves, and he is the one who gets to pleasure the smile he received at his act. His tears go ignored, and he walks from the headstone in something that feels horribly like surrender.

When his daughter sobs into his arms and begs him to start smiling again, and they spend hours crying and comforting each other over their loss. When she's sleeping quietly, tucked against his side and the tear tracks still clear on her moon pale skin, and something like hope tingles over his skin.

On a summer day, when the small family is having lunch a year after the accident, they talk about movies and school, and discuss important things like love. Kurt watches as she rambles on and on about that boy in his class who won't stop teasing her, and feels proud at how grown she is. As they leave the diner, and his daughter stops him in the middle of the avenue, she pulls a dozen red roses from behind her back, and Kurt smiles and laughs through the tears falling down his eyes.

When the old, dead roses are replaced by a beautiful bouquet that very evening, only one of the less deteriorated old ones saved into the pages of an old book. The bookshelf is moved into the living room, and the flowers watch over them as they dance to The Beatles and watch Disney movies together, happy.


End file.
